take your answer off the air...

Talker's MagazineThe quirky talk radio trade mag. Check the Talk Radio Research Project- it's not very scientific, but places on the top 15 talkers list (scroll down to Talk Radio Audiences By Size)) are as hotly contested as Emmys (and mean just about as much).

The AdvocateNo, not THAT Advocate... it's the Northwest Progressive Institute's Official Blog.

Media MattersDocumentation of right-wing media in video, audio and text.

Orcinushome of David Neiwert, freelance investigative journalist and author who writes extensively about far-right hate groups

Hominid Views"People, politics, science, and whatnot"
Darryl is a statistician who fights imperialism with empiricism, gives good links and wry commentary.

Jesus' General An 11 on the Manly Scale of Absolute Gender, a 12 on the Heavenly Scale of the 10 Commandments and a 6 on the earthly scale of the Immaculately Groomed.

Irrational Public Radio "informs, challenges, soothes and/or berates, and does so with a pleasing vocal cadence and unmatched enunciation. When you listen to IPR, integrity washes over you like lava, with the pleasing familiarity of a medium-roast coffee and a sensible muffin."

The Moderate VoiceThe voice of reason in the age of Obama, and the politics of the far-middle.

News Hounds Dogged dogging of Fox News by a team who seems to watch every minute of the cable channel so you don't have to.

HistoryLinkFun to read and free encyclopedia of Washington State history. Founded by the late Walt Crowley, it's an indispensable tool and entertainment source for history wonks and surfers alike.

right-wing blogs we like

The Reagan WingHearin lies the real heart of Washington State Republicans. Doug Parris runs this red-meat social conservative group site which bars no holds when it comes to saying who they are and who they're not; what they believe and what they don't; who their friends are and where the rest of the Republicans can go. Well-written, and flaming.

February 08, 2009

Monday oddems: If KUOW is number one, and KIRO is number two - does that mean does mean steve scher is king and dori is queen?

~~ KUOW, not KIRO is No.1 in the ratings in Seattle as P-I's Bill Virgin has reported. We hope Dori Monson (KIRO m-f, 12-3p) has made a correction, after the strutting, crowing segment he did, taking the credit for KIRO's success. Has Steve Scher (KUOW m-f, 9-11) usurped Dori as the new "King of Seattle Talk Radio?" We doubt Dori would agree, and this is all very beneath the Very Public Radio Steve. We admire his kingly professional decision NOT to be an asshole on the radio. Of course he comes from the confident place of a man whose hairline didn't come out of a box or bottle.

~~ No Saturday Presidential Weekly Address on the radio in Seattle??? Wow, that liberal media is screwing up! P-I blogger Brian Chin asked around and found no station that carries the traditional Saturday broadcast now that it's Obama not Bush. Right-wing KKOL and KVI once carried Bush's speech, as did dozens of stations across Washington despite Obama carried the state hugely in the election. A P-I commenter found that no one in the state carries it. Says something about Seattle radio, doesn't it? Another anomaly like not having a live & local liberal station in one of the liveliest, liberal localities on earth. No matter, though, get it on the Internets in another way Obama is "bypassing the media filter."

~~ Monday is KVI day. Dr. Laura will be gone: you'll have to listen to The Other Laura (KVI m-f, 3-6p) if you want a scolding; a delayed Dennis Miller Showwill replace her in the 9-ta-noon.

~~ Yes, Monday is KVI day. For something a little different, yet so the same, it's Weissbach, starting Monday 5-6p weekdays. Peter Weissbach (rhymes with lies-sack) is a Seattle retread well familiar in these dayparts. He has a voice that's been compared to the installing of dry-wall, and politics

to match. Rumors batting around radio town is that the harsh,
right-winged libertarian and well-to-do Vancouver garbage collection heir has bought this drive-time hour on this troubled station just for the air-checks. Can't say for sure if that's true, but a one hour show is weird, he's bought himself onto the radio before On the other hand, he could certainly afford 3 hours... Good news is: he's live & local, and they carved an hour off the execrable Mark Le Vin's show.

~~ another day, another honor. BlatherWatch finally made it as one of Yelp.com's Pointless Websites, nomination thanks to tony "grand warlock of yelp" who writes, "but i love it." We could use a grand warlock around here, if he'd eat some trolls.

~~ While you're up, get me a Singapore sling... The foodies or specifically, the cocktail-geek branch of the foodist cult have discovered Rachel Maddow, the first and only talking head to have ever used the words, "cherry heering" in a political commentary.

(photo: Rachel Maddow- a minor in mixology).

She's been making treks to the Martha Stewart Showand various food pages with her amateur mixology (that's a made-up word for "bartender.")Read this string from eGullet entitled," Who is Rachel Maddow? And why is she making cocktail videos?"" Don't laugh -- they might never have heard of Rachel, but they know who is Padma Lakshmi... do you?

~~ Wish we'd said it dep't: "Self-regulation is to regulation what self-importance is to importance." ~Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner

~~ Linda Thomas didn't get the job... alas. Maura
Gallucci did.

(photo: Maura Galucci)

We're talking about the girl-kick spot for the Bob Rivers Show (KZOK m-f, 5-10a) We were rooting for Linda
Thomas, not because we don't think Maura is worthy, but because Linda
with her honeyed-yet- sounds-like-she-knows-what-she's-talking-about
voice is a radio pro who dared blog her way through the long process of being auditioned on-air... up to and including the day she found out she didn't get
the job. Took guts -- she knew the competition was strong, and winning was no given. if we know Linda (and we feel like we do after her intrepid blogging) she'll be getting something nice in radio one day soon. Congrats, Maura.

~~ Is there a consultant in the building? If it's Fisher Plaza, (KOMO, KVI, Star 101.5) odds on the answer is yes. Star is showing changes we'll see more of as the market converts to Arbitron's new PPM ratings technology. PPM data from elsewhere says people listen to more stations for less time each. A radio guy we talk to says there's more emphasis at Star on the more songs in their music library despite their "best of everything" slogan. "Kent & Alan aren't chatting much," he says, "basically becoming background to the music and emphasizing the [higher volume] of music in the morning. The thought is to build around your entire day, not relying so heavily on mornings. Interesting, but what can talk radio do? Cut down the ad spots -- that's why we push the radio buttons so much. Chances of that? oh, zero.

~~ We know, he's such a nice guy! And he sure as hell is a survivor! Remember Dan Restione the KIRO news editor who claimed he'd gone to, graduated from, Harvard, but never did, had?

(photo: fire starter, show stopper Dan Restione)

Said he'd bring the ol' sheepskin in to show everybody, but never did that either. He kept his job, amazingly enough, but now we're hearing he nearly lost it a few months ago when he lit the back porch on fire with a
displaced cigarette. Suspended him, they did -- sans pay, they did. the usually excitable News Director Ursula Reutine got him talked back in, and then he made employee of the month in January! A charmed existence, his. But he's so nice...

~~We've decided we like Mika Brzezinski. The co-host of MSNBC's Morning Joe has been filling in for David Shuster on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She's stickery, she's all-business, and she agrees altogether too much with the conservative Joe Scarborough.

(photo: Mika doesn't always feel gorgeous)

But she doesn't look that much like her famous father and unlike Shuster, she knows her comedic limitations and doesn't try to make jokes. What comes out in the end is some pretty substantive cable talk. Shuster tries to be Jon Stewart on the cheap, but has neither the writers nor the chops to pull it off.

~~ 32 percent of all story ideas generated in newsroom budget meetings come from National Public Radio. It’s a true fact. Go ahead, look it up. But what will radio news rooms like KIRO do when the newspapers are gone? What will we all do?

Comments

regarding you're Tim Geithner quote from Democracy Now with Amy Goodman we get:
why what Geithner did was worse than Daschle:

"Welcome to Democracy Now!

JAMES STEELE: Good to be with you, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you both with us. Jim Steele, let's begin with you. Why do you think Geithner's problems were actually worse than Tom Daschle's tax problems?

JAMES STEELE: Well, Daschle ended up having to pay far more in taxes than Geithner did, and neither one of these cases are forgivable or can be explained away easily. But the difference with Geithner is, I think almost every American knows that you have to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes. I think just the average person on the street who draws a paycheck knows that is taken out of their check. And that's what's so disturbing about Geithner's. If these were avoidable mistakes, if these were simply things he overlooked, I think the question is, why weren't those corrected at some point before President Obama had tapped him to be Treasury secretary?

This is the thing that's actually disturbing about both of these cases. Both Geithner and Daschle went back and paid these taxes, but only after their names were dropped into that hopper, which suggested they were going to be cabinet officers. If these were truly under those categories of those kinds of mistakes, the question is, why wasn't that done at some time in the past, especially in the case of Geithner, where he had been audited by the IRS for previous tax years and had paid some additional taxes at that time. It was only after he was suggested for the Treasury secretary and the vetting process began that he then remitted these additional taxes.

AMY GOODMAN: Don Barlett, explain further exactly what the taxes were that Tim Geithner paid and didn't pay and what the relation was to his work at the IMF, the International Monetary Fund.

DONALD BARLETT: Well, as Jim indicated, these are the payroll taxes-Social Security, Medicare-that everyone has to pay. And, you know, the tax code is complex. Everybody knows that. It is easy to make a mistake.

But the reason we said that Geithner's was far more egregious is this. He signed a piece of paper acknowledging that he owed both taxes while he was employed by the IMF. He then collected the money from IMF to pay the taxes. Now, most of us, you know, the payroll taxes are withheld. We don't get reimbursed for those taxes. It comes out of our own pocket. But Mr. Geithner not only signed a paper acknowledging he owed taxes, he collected money to pay the taxes and then didn't pay them and pocketed the money. This is why it was far more egregious for him and why-you know, the New York Times demanded that Tom Daschle withdraw, and he did. But the same demand was not put on Mr. Geithner.

And even more disturbing is the fact that only one Democratic member of the Senate Finance Committee voted against Mr. Geithner for this reason-for this reason. That was the Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who said he just couldn't support it. And Harkin was right, because the message this is sending to the public of large-the tax system already is as close to collapse as you're going to get as a result of it not being enforced evenly. The double standard on tax law-as you indicated in the introduction, Jim and I have been writing about taxes for almost forty years. Our first series that won the Pulitzer Prize was on the unequal enforcement of the tax code. And that was back in the 1970s. And since then, it has exploded. And what is happening now in Washington just captures where it is now. Here you have the Senate Finance Committee approving this, and you have the Senate overwhelmingly approving it.

AMY GOODMAN: I just want to go back to that one point that you made about Geithner and what you wrote about in this piece in The Daily Beast. "According to the Senate Finance Committee, Geithner ‘filled out, signed and submitted an annual tax-allowance request with the IMF that states, "I wish to apply for tax allowance of US federal and state income taxes and the difference between the ‘self-employed' and ‘employed' obligation of the US Social Security tax which I will pay on my Fund income."'"

So the IMF actually gave him money for those taxes to pay, but he didn't pay them. When exactly did this come to his attention? And why is it now that he's paying them, Don?

DONALD BARLETT: Well, he wanted to be secretary of the Treasury. I mean, you want a top cabinet job, you've got to pay your taxes. I mean, it looks a little unseemly if you don't.

AMY GOODMAN: Right, it's clear why he's paying them now, but how long was it? I mean, it was called to his attention before this point.

JAMES STEELE: IRS did two-

DONALD BARLETT: Two audits.

JAMES STEELE: Two audits for a couple of those previous years. And he did have a settlement with them at that time. But it was not until his name was proposed for Treasury secretary that then the vetting-in that vetting process, he went back and looked at two other years, if I'm not mistaken, and it was on those, where the situation was very similar to the ones he had settled with IRS, that he then paid the taxes."

You mean there are still people out there who read this blog? (Tony?) Unbelievable!

Very chatty column, Michael. Good one and mostly radio.

Would have thought KUOW would carry the President's radio address - being public radio and all. Bush's too just 'cuz he was Prez. well, sort of. Guess, "The Decider" - self-described - is more accurate.

Singapore Slings - put me flat on my ass when I was a youngster and never had a second one. Of course, the "mixologist" was a good friend. Thought it was pretty funny, he did.

Man, why doesn't Maddow ditch those glasses? Is she trying to look weird on purpose?

I mean, I understand her sexual orientation and all, she's no doubt much more of a man that Burbank (that wouldn't take much), but getting rid of the glasses and growing out the hair some would do wonders for her appearance.

Geithner is a brilliant guy, and got through because the Republicans know him and like him. that's why socialists like Amy Goodman didn't like him. He is one of the best appointment Obama has made in his centrist government. Not the only appt that pissed off the extreme left.

Can I stop laughing now. Usually when a President holds a national news conference he usually addresses the nation. Remember CLinton when said he "I did not have sexual relations with that girl". He looked straight into every Americans eyes when he said it. President Obama, he looked only twice into the front camera. Those Williams sisters need to quit playing tennis behind the audience so our President can be focused when he addresses the nation. Get rid of them teleprompters.

The stimulus could fail - Spinchter or no Spinchter. So if the economy goes worse, so goes the Dimocrat control of Congress. If it succeeds, the jury is out and it will also depend on other decisions made between now and then. No one can confidently predict if this omnibus spending bill sprinkled with meager tax cuts will help the economy. It will take a year to be able to measure the real effects.

Steven – politics aside, homesick is better than seasick! I know we can agree on that! Ha Ha Ha. I’ll put this on a topic that is not about to fade. Laying all jokes aside though, yesterday was the first time I felt queasy after I came out of the void. The smell of hydraulics with stale water was no good. I was down there with the deckies securing gate valve for my transducer. Never felt queasy in the Navy as I was an avionics zoomie so it was either carriers or P-3s.

The sunrise over the Pacific was beautiful this morning. The gale winds subsided but the waves were still there. We got caught in a trough a few times but things were not flying around like they were yesterday. I went out on the graded deck with a cup of coffee to keep my hands warm while I had my back to the winds just to see if we could get splashed. Today’s work was mostly with software. I was working on the security server when I decided to give my eyes rest and go outside for a dose of fresh cold air. As I looked out the window of the door I saw two dolphins (or porpoise could never tell the difference) swimming along our starboard side. They jumped out of the swell a few times with swimming speed about ten knots. Best display of dolphins had to be the large pod one day sailing time west of the Galapagos a few years back. There must have been over 150 in the group. I’ve seen all sorts of whales too when sailing in Alaska, the equator and French Polynesia. You could be sitting on the beach in Samoa downing a Vailima and see dolphins not too far from shore.

We are approximately 450 miles west of San Francisco tonight. I am going to have to set up the short wave and AM radio when I get to Hawaii so we can get local stations at night during those Northwest Hawaiian Island cruises. If it was set up now I know we can hear all the stations up and down the coast as well as the Midwest. Time to hit the rack as another day puts us out a week out of Honolulu. Different issues to work on tomorrow. It’s always fun working on a transit cruise when the boat just got out of the yard. Somewhere I have two newly installed valves for my salt water temperature and conductivity measuring system that they didn’t tell me about. Looks like another day in the voids or stores.

I've heard it more than once and then they play the Republican response a little later in the hour.

When I saw highlights of Obama on TV tonite on the news, he can't look at the camera in front of him to the American People. I got a kick out of hearing his response to question about Iran. Um, uh, etc. Seemed like he was waiting for someone to bring up the Iran notes on the teleprompter.

I have thought of myself as a democrat in the past, but usually vote who I think is best for the job in each race.

Way too much pork in this "stimulus bill". Tacoma wants hundreds of millions for street repair and sidewalks... why? Because they don't have the money due to all the "Big Bang Projects" of the past. Infrastructure repairs didn't provide enough "bang for the buck". Per former City Council member Sharon McGavick.

Plus, Tacoma has the potential of getting sued for failure to be ADA compliant on sidewalks/crosswalks... That's why they want all the money from the Feds.

My mother read what you wrote and said she is sorry you don't understand that Daschel is no longer in the running, and so why does it matter what he says? She also thinks it is silly you quote an article that makes it sound like Daschle is making ANY decisions on the national level.

By the way, Steven, the Senate version of the bill is what passed today, with 3 Republicans voting in favor of it. But a compromise bill still has to be made between the House and the Senate, so nothing is carved in stone at this point.

Robert Reich had some thoughts on the voting today:
Republicans don't want their fingerprints on the stimulus bill or the next bank bailout because they plan to make the midterm election of 2010 a national referendum on Barack Obama's handling of the economy. They know that by then the economy will still appear sufficiently weak that they can dub the entire Obama effort a failure -- even if the economy would have been far worse without it, even if the economy is beginning to turn around. They'll say "he wanted more government spending, and we said no, but we didn't have the votes. Elect us and we'll turn the economy around by cutting taxes and getting government out of the private sector."

Obama believes Republicans will eventually embrace bipartisanship. I hope he's right but I fear he's wrong. They want to take back Congress the way Newt Gingrich retook the House (and helped Republicans retake the Senate) in 1994 -- with hellfire and brimstone. Once in control of Congress, they'll be able to block Obama's big inititiaves on health care and the environment, stop any Supreme Court nominees, and set up their own candidate for the White House in 2012.

So remember, the Republicans are taking party over patriotism. But what else is new?

How many of the Senators and Congress critters really know what is in this bill?
That is the part that really pisses me off. I accept that we lost the election and the D's are going to get just about anything they want passed. But what did they just pass that my as yet to be born grand son is going to have to pay. Poor little shit already has to support me through Soc Security.
By the way, is ACORN really stimulus?

Sparky did your mom read the ending of my post. Or just the part you wanted her to read. I was very clear that Daschle was not going to be heading the department. What other part of the post did you edit out so she wouldn't see or hear. Maybe the...

"That means the elderly will bear the brunt"

I'm sure she is smart. But if she doesn't have the whole story and just gets fed what you want her to hear or read since she is in your home now, then maybe we should put a "fairness Doctrine" in your household. Because what that quote above means to me is that the elderly should just bear the pain they are suffering from old age and die peacefully. Doesn't it bother you with ideas like that that Obama was even going to consider Daschle to run this department in the first place.

And you see the pork in the bill Sparky. You are not fooling anyone. You just see the pork as another tasty treat coming from pigs. Bacon.

"Once in control of Congress, they'll be able to block Obama's big inititiaves on health care and the environment, stop any Supreme Court nominees, and set up their own candidate for the White House in 2012."

I see you forgot the part of balancing the budget and leaving a surplus for the next President. Wouldn't those two things be a good thing again Sparky. Or do you think President Obama and this Lib Congress will spend to much that it will be impossible to balance again.

Then how did she miss that part Sparky. Did she have her reading glasses on. Were you hiding them on her. It was clearly there that I said Daschle was not in the running to lead that Department. And that was her only criticism of my post.

When Bush lifted the ban last year oil plunged down to under $40.00 a bbl. Well hold onto your gas cap, as those $150.00 a bbl will be back before you know it thanks to who ever this Salazar gets his orders from.

That was a good move by Bush - one a few. The price of oil will stay reasonable but ramp up as the supply goes down.

I don't put much faith in the current Administration as long as Pelosi and Reid are in charge of Congress. They are Neanderthals, fascistic (very little difference between them and the Bush Administration - except they like big government socialism more) and owned lock-stock and barrel by the Environmental lobby and Al Gore is socking away millions for funneling $ into wind and solar and blowing off nuclear and any additional drilling. Why do you leftists like this ? Is it only because conservatives and Republicans are in favor of stuff like this ?

If so, you might ask yourself have you been brainwashed ? If so, you may be more like the moonies back in the 80's than you realize and need to be deprogrammed and overhaul your belief system. Apparently the Democrats in Congress who are controlled by special interests feel this way. They are not really looking out for you, so why do you look out for them ? (Republicans are also influenced by different special interests, but they are out of power as they earned that status). Sad state of affairs...

Uhh it's under $40 a barrel today. $37.90. In fact it went that way right before the election. So if what Bush did was so great, how come the price at the pump continues to increase? Where was Bushler from 03'-08 while his pals were making so much profit from gas?

I never heard the same revisionists during the 03-08' bush era say 'bush ought to be doing something about the price of oil' but after he's out, we're are being snowed into believing he had the invisible hand of Adam Smith at work. The lifting of any ban had no play in the price, it was the economy stupid. People had mortgaged all they had to buy $4 gas.

BTW, Bush no longer is President. The lifting of the offshore drilling ban did affect the price at the time - if you remember, it drove the price down about $16/barrel, but the dynamics were different then. The speculators were influenced by futures and it was projected at that time that there would be offshore drilling and more supply out of the hands of the OPECkers. George Soros and the Hedge funds loved it.. That was then.

However, after the economy tanked here in September and there was that big sucking noise all over the world that contributed driving the price down coupled with falling demand that made gas unbelievably cheap. It's a giant roller coaster ride and will eventually get back to $4/gallon maybe before year's end.

oh but Coiler, anything that happened between 2001 and 2006 wasnt Bush's fault. It was the fault of the Dems in congress. Those 4$ gallons of gas had to be the Democrats fault. And of course, anything that happened after 06 was the Democrats fault. Bushie wasnt responsible for anything. Everything happened TO him, not because of him.

KVI am 570 KHz Visit the burnt-out husk of one of the seminal right-wing talkers in all the land. Here's where once trilled the reactionary tones of Rush Limbaugh, John Carlson, Kirby Wilbur, Mike Siegel, Peter Weissbach, Floyd Brown, Dinky Donkey, and Bryan Suits.
Now it's Top 40 hits from the '60's & '70's aimed at that diminishing crowd who still remembers them and can still hear.

KTTH am 770 KHzRight wing home of local, and a whole bunch of syndicated righties such as Glennn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Lars Larsony, and for an hour a day: live & local David Boze.